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January-March 2010 JOURNAL OF EURASIAN STUDIES Volume II., Issue 1. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Chinese as yuli-wang. She found it as guli, kokli, luli and other transcriptions, but the sign has not only “gu” but “yu” phonetics, as well. 49 The title has parallels among steppe society, the Hungarian gyula, or the Hephthalite gula (or gollas in Byzantine sources) 50 , which remained in Mihiragula’s name. Its parallel can be found in the Jula personal name in the Mongolian Jangar epos, or the Mongolian expression “joloo”, which means rein. 51 As previously Gyula Németh showed, the Hungarian gyula has connection with the Old Turkic “yula”, or Khitan clan name, Yila. 52 This title appeared earlier as the Turkic Empire was established. The title was known not only by those people, who arrived to Europe, but among those ones, who remained in Asia as well. In the steppe history the choban or shoban title occurred many times among Huns and their descendants. For the first time the ancient Chinese sources recorded it as zhai-wang, etc., 53 which exhibits similarities with the above mentioned ones. The Han dynasty, which has Southern-Hunnic origins, used the expression zhao-wang as title and ruling epoch, 54 the same one, or supan, appeared among the Persians. Later, through the Middle Ages we find the word Choban in the Persian and Caucasus region. Some Hungarian scholars thought that those ones were analogous to the Hungarian choban, 55 moreover Géza Fehér pointed to Attila’s third son’s name, Chaba, a variant of the choban. The antiquity of the title choban confirms the tribe name of the Pechenegs, Choban. Some Hungarian scholars have drawn the attention to other information that nobody used it as evidence. Gyula Moravchik published two variants, choban or chaban from the 6 th century. 56 Later, Louis Ligeti recorded, that an Onogur prince was named Chupan, but nobody used that important data, 57 despite the Hunnic origin of the title. Recently, the Hungarian historian Jenő Darko drew the attention to similarities between the personal names Chaba from the Hungarian historical chronicles and tradition and the title choban. The above mentioned scholar referred to the story of Bahram Chobin, Persian king, who fought with Byzantine in the forefront of the Caucasus. 49 We can find other data in Bernhard Karlgren’s Grammata Serica work: “sense of part of name”, so it must be a record of a name. In Mathews’ dictionary after the sign of gu, there is an expression of yu phonetics in the followig way: “name of a branch of the Hsien pei”. 50 Moravcsik, 1942. II. 108. 51 Szentkatolnai, 1877. 23 52 He, Abaoqi, was the founder of the Lioa-dynaty, who belonged to the Khitay Yila tribe, who ruled in the 10 th century. (Mote, 1999. 37) 53 Obrusánszky, 2007. 133. 54 Thanks to Csornai Katalin for the information. 55 In the Bolgarian etymological dictionary, the word choban and Chobanin has Persian origin. Georgijev, 1971. 627. 56 Moravcsik, 1942. II. 121. 57 Ligeti, 1986. 140. _____________________________________________________________________________________ © Copyright Mikes International 2001-2010 64
January-March 2010 JOURNAL OF EURASIAN STUDIES Volume II., Issue 1. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Justice The historians, who deal with the steppe people, tried to reconstruct the justice system of the Huns. Most of them realised that the provision of justice happened first at tribal level, but after the establishment of an empire, the representatives of the local decimal organisation were given power. Analogously with some historical people in Inner Asia, we can assume that the fundament of the judicial system was the local custom (Mongolian yosun). As we can see from the Chinese historical sources, a central code existed in the Hunnic Empire, which was valid all over the empire. 58 The Shi Ji chronicle, then the later Chinese sources recorded some “brutal” acts regarding Huns, because those legal customs were unknown for them. The Shi Ji noticed that Hun statutes are easy to keep with, so in their view, the governmental deeds are very easy for the Huns. 59 The 110th chapter of the Shi Ji recorded some Hunnic statutes as the following: “Regarding the Hun statutes, the man who pulls his sword from sheath in peaceful periods more than half sing, is sentenced to death. Who is condemned for theft, all his property will be expropriated. Custodial sentences of minor crimes included the crushing of the ankle-bone. Those who committed serious crimes were always sentenced to death. Nobody was imprisoned for longer, than 10 days, and no more than a handful of people were incarcerated in the whole empire.” 60 As we can see from above, in case of theft, serious crimes, the judges sentenced to death the guilty persons; this legal practice and the philosophy of the punishment is quite similar to the later Mongolian Code, Jasag, which is based on the local custom, too. Probably, the nomadic lifestyle of the steppe empires is not consistent with the practise of imprisonment, and they favoured quick decision: the guilty has to be executed or he had to compensate the victim directly. In the early period, the head of the Judge was the Hun shanyu or danhu. According to the sources, the eastern wing of the Empire, the Hu-yan, and the western one the Xu-Bu tribe led the justice. The Shanyu orally appointed them and often controlled their work, and in some cases the shanyu judged. 61 In the administration the leader (wang) of the wings was responsible for this task. In the course time, the shanyu transferred these tasks to reliable officers or relatives, so in the decades of the 1 st century AD, an independent justice chief was established. The Japanese Yamada thinks that originally the head of the tribe worked as judge, which is underscored by the above mentioned sources, but he refers to Hou-Han-shu, where the leading clans (Hu-yan, Xubu and Lan) took part in judicial activities among the Southern Huns. 62 Regarding the Hu-yan name, Katalin Csornai has found an interesting data. The old Chinese pronunciation of that is similar to the old Hungarian title, horka, which was the leading judge among Hungarians. 63 Hungarian scholars related that word to a Turkic one, but it is likely to be an 58 Boldbaatar, 1997. 19, Yamada, 1989. 301. 59 Shi Ji 110. 60 Shi Ji. 110. 61 Boldbaatar, 1997. 20. 62 Yamada, 1989. 301. 63 Csornai, 2007. 368. _____________________________________________________________________________________ © Copyright Mikes International 2001-2010 65
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